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Patience of Subaru fans rewarded with 2015 WRX

LOS ANGELES – Subaru's iconic WRX, a rally-bred car embraced by predominantly young male buyers, had its world premiere today at the Los Angeles Auto Show. While Subaru has built faithful fans with its

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LOS ANGELES – Subaru's iconic WRX, a rally-bred car embraced by predominantly young male buyers, had its world premiere today at the Los Angeles Auto Show.

While Subaru has built faithful fans with its lifestyle vehicles and boxer engine, it is the WRX and STI that elevate the brand to performance and cult status.

"While the addition of the WRX and STI won't generate nearly as much incremental volumes as their latest and greatest crossovers, the halo effect created by these fire-breathing Subaru's will pay off dividends for years to come by exposing aspirational buyers and shoppers to the brand," said Alec Gutierrez, senior analyst with Kelley Blue Book.

The 2015 WRX rides on a new platform to make it stiffer and more agile than its predecessor and it has bigger brakes and a performance tuned suspension.

A new torque vectoring system reduces understeer for the all-wheel-drive car that has a new 268-horsepower 2-liter turbo boxer engine and its first 6-speed manual transmission. Buyers can also opt for a new continuously variable automatic transmission with manual modes.

The car is roomier – the wheelbase is 1 inch longer - and the overall look is bolder.

"Subaru fans are the possibly the most dedicated in the automotive world," said KBB analyst Karl Brauer. "And WRX fans are the most dedicated within this group. The latest version is a visual stunner with even more advanced performance technology. The order line forms to the left."

Subaru also marked the 25th anniversary of the Legacy midsize sedan with a stylish Legacy concept to show the future design direction for the car.

Subaru has been growing faster than the competition in sales this year -- up 28.1% vs. the industry overall growth of 8.4% -- on the strength of its redesigned Forester and all-new XV Crosstrek.utility based on the Imprza. A coming Crosstrek hybrid will be Subaru's first gas-electric car.